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Osho
ISSUE SIXTY ONE, APRIL 2007 DROP KNOWLEDGE
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:: In Focus ::


Managing Knowledge in Quest of the Ultimate
Satya Vedant Knowledge is a very personal thing. It is not an object to possess, a property to own. Also, knowledge does not exist in books and scriptures, in software programs or prepared texts. When one knows, say the Buddhas, it becomes part and parcel of oneself. In spiritual traditions, therefore, it has been passed on from person to person. This is so much evident in the Upanishads, in the dialogues between Socrates and his students, Zen masters and their disciples.

Knowledge has several dimensions. It can be factual information, or an accumulated body of thoughts, ideas, and insights. In spiritual terms what matters is "knowing" which is more intuitive and subjective – hence very personal. In the Eastern tradition knowledge is identified as: Avidya, the worldly knowledge; Vidya, spiritual understanding; Pragya, Intelligence – which is beyond worldly knowledge and the spiritual understanding.

Osho’s insight is that, people love knowledge but in the sense of information. It is very ego-satisfying, he says. Whenever you can say that you know, whenever you can give some advice to somebody else, you feel very high. This way one loves to play the role of a teacher.

Beyond information and the worldly knowledge is "knowing" and, knowing is part of growth. "Grow, says Osho. "Each moment go on growing, expanding, exploding. Each moment should be a new birth. Why is it not so? Because, you go on carrying the past with you. If you want each moment to be a new birth, you have to die also each moment to the past. Die to the past so that you can be reborn here-now. All knowledge is of the past. Mind is always of the past. Consciousness is always of the present. A buddha helps you to become more conscious; he does not help you to become more knowledgeable." (The Last Nightmare, Chapter 7)

Commenting on the second adhyaya (cantos) of the Bhagavadgita, Osho’s explains: "There is a very valuable saying of Socretes that, knowledge is virtue. He used to say, to know means to become alright. People would tell him, ‘we know that stealing is bad but even then we cannot give up stealing!’ And Socretes would say, you don’t know at all what stealing is because once you knew what stealing is, you will automatically drop stealing, then you won’t have to make any effort to give up stealing.

"We know, anger is bad; we know, fear is bad; we know, sexual lust is bad, desire is bad, greed is bad, all intoxicants are bad; we know all these things. But Samkhya, or Socretes, or Krishnamurti will say; no, you don’t know. You have only heard that anger is a bad thing, but you actually don’t know it is indeed a bad thing. You have heard from somebody else anger is bad, but you have never known it yourself it is bad. And knowing can never be a borrowed thing. If you wish to know something you have to know it yourself, others cannot make you know it. Only you yourself can know, and nobody else can know it for you. And there is a big difference between these two things."

…2 The secret of managing knowledge, therefore, is in knowing the difference Osho is explaining. He also makes it clear that knowledge of the ultimate is paradoxical for many reasons. But basically, the very claim that one knows becomes a hindrance because the moment one says, "I know," the person is not only emphasizing knowledge; one is also emphasizing 'I' -- and the 'I' is the barrier. The ego is the most subtle barrier, explains Osho, but the strongest. So when someone says, "I know," the 'I' destroys the knowledge.

"This is the paradox: those who are ignorant, they always think they know. This is part of ignorance. To think that you know is part of ignorance; it comes from ignorance. If you are ignorant you will think that you know much. The more ignorant, the more you will think that you know much. Ignorance is filled with knowledge. Ignorance, really, lives on knowledge, feeds on knowledge. The wiser you become the more aware and understanding, the more you will feel how ignorant you are. And a moment comes when you feel that you do not know anything. Simply, you are ignorant. All the burden of knowledge is thrown away. There is no heaviness of knowledge on you. You have become so weightless that you can fly. Knowledge is a burden."(The Supreme Doctrine, Chapter 8)

Hence, Osho points out that, when one feels one does not know, the ego disappears; then it has no room to exist. It can exist only with knowledge. So, whenever a person claims knowledge, it is a claim by the ego: "I know." The emphasis obviously is not on knowing, the emphasis is on ‘I’. But when one says, "I do not know," the emphasis is not on ignorance; now the emphasis is on egoless-ness.

While explaining the paradox furtehr, Osho says: "The ultimate is not only the unknown; the Brahman is not only the unknown -- it is unknowable also. You can know it, but you cannot know it totally. That creates again a new puzzle. You can know it but you cannot know it totally because you are just a part to it and the part cannot know the whole. How can the part know the whole totally? But also the part cannot be totally ignorant either because it belongs to the whole; it is part of the whole. So it knows in a way, it feels in a way, it understands in a way, but it cannot comprehend the total because the total is so vast." (The Supreme Doctrine, Chapter 8)

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